TheLibrarianIsHere TheLibrarianIsHere

A couple of summers ago, as I drove into Royalton on my way to work, I had the window down and was enjoying the lovely day. I saw two boys riding their bikes along the road, and as I drove past them I heard one of them yell to the other, "The librarian is here the librarian is here!" It came out in one long multisyllabic breath as the boy stood up on the bike, peddling as fast as he could while wearing a huge smile on his face. Half an hour later, when I opened the library for business, the boys were there, eager to sign up for the Summer Reading Program. I can't remember whether they brought their library cards with them. Probably not.

After all this time, it still makes me smile.

Yesterday was the Summer Reading Program kick-off. Our theme this year is "Look What's Cookin' at Your Library," so we're having lots of fun with food oriented programming. Gabi came up (after teaching summer school all morning) to lead a demonstration on using a pizza box to make a solar oven that would melt English-muffin pizzas. My aide staffed the craft table where kids made suncatchers out of paper plates and clear contact paper. And my branch assistant thrilled the kids with her facepainting and story telling skills. I cooked pizza (in a most-definitely-not solar oven) and did the paperwork of signing up 50+ kids. Not a bad turnout for a town of under a thousand.

So, yes, summer is officially here. The reading has begun!

For a great look at (someone else's) pictures of the pizza-box solar oven, click here.

For any parents/teachers/library staff out there, both the pizza-box solar oven and the paper-plate suncatcher are great kids' crafts. The idea for the suncatcher came from our SRP resource guide. Basically, take a dessert-sized paper plate and cut a 3 1/2 to 4 inch circle from the center of the plate. Cut two circles from clear contact paper, making them the same size, about a half-inch larger than the circle in the plate. Put one contact paper circle over the bottom of the plate, so that the sticky side is facing up. Decorate the sticky circle; we gave the kids glitter, confetti, pieces of brightly colored tissue paper and colored feathers. When they've finished decorating, place the second piece of contact paper over the "bowl" of the plate, sealing in all the decorations between the two pieces of contact paper. Punch a hole in the top of the plate, add a ribbon, and you have a suncatcher.



I found the picture above here. It gives you the basic idea, but I have to say that our kids' suncatchers were way more creative and pretty than this one! I wish I had thought to take my camera.